Because I am trying to drive myself insane by working on four projects at once, here is an initial sketch-up of my world map for MatthewRM. I tried to stay true to his original sketch, but also wanted to make the continent more asymmetrical. I also wanted to kind of wash out the sea color near the poles to help reinforce the environmental extremes the client described to me.

Anyways, here it is so far.

MatthewRM

09-24-2010, 04:05 PM

This looks great so far. I love the inland sea. I can't wait to see where this goes.

cereth

09-26-2010, 01:01 AM

It doesn't look like I accomplished a lot since the first update, but it took me a long time to get the navigational lines the way I wanted them and to get the mountains symbols to look right. The mountain symbols come from Quabbe's brush set. I "colorized" them and then used the "clone stamp tool" method to apply them. I'm pretty happy with how they look...long way to go yet though. :)

Steel General

09-26-2010, 08:54 AM

Looks good so far...

MatthewRM

09-26-2010, 08:58 AM

This is amazing. I love the navigation lines, and the mountains look. The more I look at it the more I like stuff like the coastlines and the inland sea. I just wish the sea had been my idea. Its going to work out so well...

Jaxilon

09-27-2010, 11:21 AM

It's great so far and I have a feeling this is going to look really nice.

cereth

10-03-2010, 10:21 AM

Progress has been slow going, but here is an update, :)

geamon

10-03-2010, 11:01 AM

I really like the brush you are working with. Keep it up!

Sapiento

10-03-2010, 12:24 PM

Looks good, but it seems the trees have shadows on the right side, mountains on the left-

cereth

10-04-2010, 07:09 PM

Doh! Nice call :)

Quabbe

10-04-2010, 07:55 PM

I like the style you've chosen for the mountains and how you arranged them. Very nice! :)

Q

cereth

10-05-2010, 06:51 PM

I made some decent progress today. I'm playing around with the fonts a bit, trying to find something I'm happy with. I'm also trying to figure out what I want the city town symbols to look like. I'm probably going to have to draw something myself. :)

Slipguard

10-05-2010, 07:56 PM

If you're in need of easy inspiration, I found a pretty nifty way if making Icons quickly. Find a font you like, and combine letters of that font in mirrored or rotated form. Here's a sample of some I came up with. Each symbol is a multiple of one number or capital letter duplicated and mirrored and rotated, then flattened and given a stroke. See if you can guess what the letters are. I think something like this would work well for your map, or at least create some compelling shapes for you to bounce off of.

Marken4

10-06-2010, 07:19 AM

The map is awesome, I like the colours and brushes.

Slipguard: Those look fairly nice! Will have to try it out myself.

cereth

10-07-2010, 10:10 AM

Spent the morning fooling around with structures and political borders. Not sure about the results.

The towns/structures are from Ramah's brush set.

LonewandererD

10-07-2010, 11:09 PM

I've always enjoyed your work cereth and this one is no exception. Starting to look like a commision that would be well worth it. Bravo, repped.

-D-

Slipguard

10-08-2010, 04:38 AM

Nice buildings. They work very well for your style. Here's some rep!

Steel General

10-08-2010, 07:15 AM

I like the buildings (especially the wall), but it is a bit difficult to see any details.

Marken4

10-10-2010, 01:57 PM

The townbrushes fit really well, but they are indeed to hard to notice, may look like hills instead of houses.

jtougas

10-10-2010, 02:25 PM

I think it's just about perfect. At this scale the buildings are visible but not too big. Nice Job !! :)

cereth

10-17-2010, 11:25 AM

Not a huge update, but I did tweak the city brushes some and am much happier with the results. Also made some progress on the mountains.

Marken4

10-17-2010, 11:35 AM

The city icons look alot better now :) I think you could increase the size of the title (Avoria) quite a bit..

rdanhenry

10-17-2010, 01:41 PM

That's coming along nicely.

Ramah

10-17-2010, 02:10 PM

Looking beautiful, Cereth. It's great to watch this progress. :)

ravells

10-17-2010, 05:48 PM

Wow, Cereth, those mountains are stunning! Lovely!

Maybe I'm a bit blind, but the city icons are hard to see colourwise against a similar coloured background...maybe a glow / outline or a different colour to make them stand out just a bit more? It's a hard call because you don't want to ruin the subtlety of the map. Maybe once they're labelled they'll be more obvious.

MatthewRM

10-20-2010, 04:45 PM

I agree ... unlabeled the cities blend a bit, but the new brushes for them are great. I love it. Its looking amazing.
I can't wait for the finished product.

cereth

11-06-2010, 09:56 AM

Started working on the southwest corner of the map some and am working my way north now.

Steel General

11-06-2010, 09:59 AM

Progressing quite nicely...

Sapiento

11-06-2010, 10:29 AM

This will become a fine map!

Lathorien

11-06-2010, 02:54 PM

where abouts are these Ramaha town icon brushes? Got most of the brushes on this site cant find town brushes (the ones i really want). If any of you can direct me to where to download them please do!

Will Phillips

11-09-2010, 02:49 PM

Those mountains are just achingly mesmerizing.

Hand drawn? Use a base and then stamp or brushed out from there? Good grief I'm so very impressed.

Have some Rep!

ExMachina

11-09-2010, 03:03 PM

I absolutely love the little map icons! Especially that wall as well...I must say that hand-drawn approach is quite beautiful. :)

The only thing that sticks out to me is that the stroke around the landmass seems a little sharp/harsh considering the rather soft and delicate feel the map has. But this is certainly turning out very nicely. ;)

Ascension

11-10-2010, 09:53 PM

This is a wonderful style, kind of fun and free. Very nice, man.

Akaizhar

11-12-2010, 02:02 PM

I like this map alot, the texture is very nice.

cypruss11

11-15-2010, 01:16 AM

Awesome map. Those mountains, they are amazing!

Akaizhar

11-19-2010, 12:50 PM

How did you get that texture over the water/land mass? and how did you wash out the color of the sea and ground?

cereth

11-19-2010, 02:35 PM

The "base" texture was created using a lot of different layers at a lower opacity so that they show through each other. The end result is what looks like a soft, paper-like surface. I've used it on a couple maps now and really I just play around with the settings until I get something I like. The three main components are Pattern Overlay effects using the Parchment, Washed Watercolor Paper, and Gouache light on Watercolor textures that come with Photoshop. I find layering those up and playing with the settings give me the base texture I want. I think there are a couple of cloud layers in there as well, again at low opacity so that they all blend together. In all about five or six layers on this map just to get the texture.

I basically did much the same thing to get the colors that I wanted...layering different textures and playing around until I got the "washed out" effect I was looking for.

Again, the mountains are from the brush set Quabbe offered in the mapping elements forum...I just colorized them and then just stamped them on. Then I went in and added some highlights.

cereth

11-24-2010, 01:23 PM

I'm still making progress on this one...just wanted to post an update. :)

Shinobiden

11-24-2010, 02:20 PM

That's a great looking map! Good job!

JDCt

11-25-2010, 11:26 AM

I think I have map envy :P Great job!

cereth

12-09-2010, 01:45 PM

I spent the morning working on these shields/crests for some of the various kingdoms and I wanted to get some opinions on how they look.

Thanks!

Sapiento

12-09-2010, 02:22 PM

The shields look great!

Steel General

12-09-2010, 05:09 PM

I like them as well, they may be a little large *shrugs*

jtougas

12-09-2010, 05:18 PM

Looks Incredible.. :)

Aenigma

12-09-2010, 06:23 PM

What font did you use?

MatthewRM

02-08-2011, 02:28 PM

Everything is amazing. The work you put in is top notch. I could not have come up with this stuff is I tried. Its a skill and you have it in loads!

Naeddyr

02-10-2011, 06:04 AM

This is good stuff. :)

wlievens

02-10-2011, 07:50 AM

Looks absolutely stunning!

cereth

10-08-2011, 11:59 PM

Sorry for the thread necromancy, but after a prolonged hiatus from mapping I've finally got this one in a nearly finished state. I'm not positive I'll ever get the map labeled at this point, but I did want to get the map itself completed. Hopefully I'll eventually hear back from the person it was for and we'll get names for everything nailed down. :)